What is an inclusive text?

Inclusive writing is any writing that is fluent, clear and direct and that addresses you or your audience. It is a text that chooses to make itself understood, not to leave you out and not to take you for granted.

Let’s take a few examples to make this clearer.

When I read “Welcome!” when I go to the home page of a website, that text has decided to exclude me: not just me, but almost half the world’s population and anyone who does not identify with that “-o”. It would not have done so if it had decided to greet me with “I welcome you” or, more simply, “Hello!

If, when filling in a survey about a service, the text asked me “Are you satisfied?”, I would tend to answer “No”, because I am not, I am satisfied. I would have answered “Very high” if the same survey had asked me: “Express your level of satisfaction from very high to very high”.

And to take a final example, if I read “flesh-coloured” and I am black, should I give in to buying a product that takes my skin colour for granted, or would I rather look for a product that, in addition to quality, has the sensitivity to appeal to me?

These are three examples of inclusive copy. They are phrases and expressions that we come into contact with on a daily basis and that do not require much linguistic trickery. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sometimes, finding an inclusive solution is a complex exercise that requires effort and creativity. In some types of texts, such as legal texts, it can be almost impossible to find a way to stick to legal language that also meets the characteristics of inclusive language. My challenge is to try to do this every time I am confronted with such a text: in future articles I will share with you the strategies I have developed in my experience with legal texts and inclusive language.

Inclusive language is often criticised and associated with the use of the ending -e, arrobas or equises. A text is fluent if it can be read aloud and does not contain too much repetition, and these language choices do not allow this (with the exception of -e, which allows this flexibility). However, while the use of these options is perfectly valid, they cannot be applied to all contexts. I will be publishing an article on inclusive forms of language and contexts in which to use them in the near future.

In conclusion, this article is only intended as an introduction to inclusive language for people who are new to the subject or who are a little sceptical about it. . Addressing all audiences does not necessarily mean sacrificing the quality, fluency or naturalness of the text. On the contrary, an inclusive text is a tool that will help you reach everyone with your message. A normal text that everyone can relate to.

By the way, you just read an inclusive text – did you notice any difference? 😉